BATON ROUGE (AP) — Eighty-six soldiers with the Louisiana National Guard’s 926th Engineer Company are back home after a year-long tour of duty in Afghanistan in which more than 20 of the soldiers received Purple Hearts.

The Advocate reports they were welcomed home by hundreds of loved ones Saturday at the Louisiana Aircraft Hangar at the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport.

No members of the 926th Engineer Company were killed in action, but more than 20 of them received the Purple Heart for their service, according to the newspaper.

“We were in a very, very contested area,” said Capt. Darby Boudreaux, company commander

The company, based in Baker, spent nearly a year in eastern Afghanistan with the mission of finding and destroying improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, targeted at U.S. and allied forces.

Gov. Bobby Jindal greeted the guardsmen as they stepped off the plane.

“These are literally the heroes that run towards danger, not away from it, so that we can be safe,” Jindal said. “You’ve got parents that have not seen their kids since last year,” he said. “They have missed birthdays, missed anniversaries, missed holidays — they did that so we could be safe.”

Cpl. Roger Daniel Oliver was among the soldiers greeted warmly by family. Roger Daniel Oliver had tears welling up in his eyes when he embraced his family.

“I couldn’t hold back any longer. It was a long year,” the guardsman said. “It was definitely eye-opening. I don’t ever want to have to go through it again.”

Oliver was shot in the leg and had to return home for a month in September, his mother, Darla Oliver, said. But he recovered well enough to fly back to Afghanistan. Roger Daniel Oliver was one of 22 Purple Heart recipients.

The unit trained in Fort McCoy in Wisconsin before heading to Afghanistan

Spc. Eric Shaffer held his 1-year-old son, Malcolm, in his arms as the family took pictures of him in his uniform.

“When I left, he was just born, so it’s huge (to be back),” Shaffer said.

Shaffer said the tour was his first in Afghanistan.

“It was long, it was hard, but we made it through,” he said.

For Staff Sgt. Kyle Gourgues, the day will forever hold a special meaning other than returning home. Gourgues proposed to his girlfriend of two years, Aliesa Warwick, while celebrating his return at the Louisiana Aircraft Hangar. Gourgues said his father brought the engagement ring to the hangar and he slipped it in his pocket before he popped the question. Warwick said yes.